27
b2plane
2y

In january 2023 i was contacted by a recruiter offering me a job position.

I DID NOT ASK FOR A JOB.

I WAS NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB.

THEY contacted ME.

Ok. So i went along with it and see how it goes. They probably wont hire me nor would i give a shit. Chatted with this recruiter for a while. She forgets to answer my message for 5 fucking days. Twice. Once because she was doing God knows what and the second time because she was on paid vacation. Fine i don't give a shit about you at all anyways.

So this recruiter chatting has been stretched out for several days. I think over a WEEK. So she forwarded me to their lead developer.

I applied to work as a full stack java spring boot backend + angular frontend engineer.

So:
- java backend
- angular frontend
- full stack
- shitload of devops
- shitload of projects i built
- worked with clients
- have CS degree, graduated
- worked a job at their rival company

What could go fucking wrong with all of these stats right?

During technical + hr interview (3 of us on google meets) they asked me what salary I'd be comfortable with.

I said $1500/month straight out.

keep in mind:
- In my country $500 or $600 is a salary for engineers per month
- You get a raise of +$150 which is around $750 after working for 1+ year
- You can earn $1000+ after you work for +2 years
- Rent here is $200-300 a month at minimun. And because of inflation its just getting worse especially with food. So this salary is not for living but for survival.

Their lead engineer gave me a WHOLE ASS FUCKING PROJECT TO BUILD and i had to code it within 10 days. Great so at least 17+ days of my fucking life to waste on these fucktards who contacted ME.

The project was about building a web app coffee shop literally what mcdonalds has when you order via those tablets. I had to build this in java spring boot and angular. I had to integrate:
- docker, devops
- barmen, baristas, orders
- people can order at the table or to go
- each barista can take 5 orders at a time
- each coffee has different types of fields and brewing time
- each barman brews each coffee different period of time
- barista cant take more than 5 orders for to go until barman finishes the previous order
- barista can take more than 5 orders but if those orders were ordered from table, and they have to be put in queue
- had to build CRUD admin functionality coffee's
- had to export them all of the postman routes
- had to design a scalable database infrastructure for all of this alone
- shitload of stuff more

And guess what. After 10 painful days I BUILT THE WHOLE THING MYSELF AND I BUILT EVERYTHING THEY ASKED FOR. IT WAS WORKING.

Submitted it. They told me they'll contact me within 7 days to schedule the final Technical interview after they review what i built. Great so another 17+7 days of my fucking time wasted.

OH and they also told me to send them THE WHOLE GITHUB REPOSITORY AND TRANSFER OWNERSHIP TO THEIR COMPANY'S OWNERSHIP. once you do this you cant have your repository back. WTF? WHY CANT YOU JUST REVIEW THE CODE FROM MY PUBLIC REPOSITORY? That was so weird but what can i fucking do argue with these dickheads?

After a week of them not answering i contacted them via email. They forgot and apologized. Smh. Then they scheduled an interview within 3 days. Great more of my time wasted.

During interview i was on a google meets with their lead engineer, 1 backend java spring boot engineer and 1 angular frontend developer. They were milking me dry for 1 whole fucking hour.

They only pointed out the flaws in what i built, which are miniscule and have not once congratulated me on the rest of the good parts. I explained them i had to rush those parts so the code may not be perfect. I had other shit to do in my life and not work for your shitty project for $0/hour for 10 days you fucking dickriders.

So they quickly ran over to theory. They asked me where is jwt token stored. Who generates it. How the backend knows to authenticate user by it. I explained.

What are solid principles. I said i cant explain what is it but i understand how it works, why its needed and how to implement it (they can clearly see in the project i just build that i applied SOLID principles everywhere) - but i do admit i dont know the theory behind it 100% clearly.

Then they asked me about observables and promises in angular. I explained them how they work and how subscribe method is used (as they can clearly see that i used it in the code). Then they asked me to explain them under the hood of how observables work. The fuck? I dont know and dont care? But i can learn it as i work there?

Etc

Final result: after dragging this for 1 fucking month for miserable $1500/month they told me: we can either hire you now but for a much lower salary which you probably wont be happy with, or you can study more these things we discussed "and know why the car leaks oil" and reapply back to us in 2-3 months!

Comments
  • 10
    What??? Im supposed to know EVERYTHING? They don't care about the fact that i have a CS DEGREE??? Afrer wasting 1 month of my life building them a project for FREE like a slave they rejected me just because theory is my weaker side?

    If i clearly know and proved i have 95% of knowledge they're looking for, why cant i learn the remaining 5% as i work at a real job on real projects???

    FUCK. YOU.
  • 2
    @UnicornPoo is that not illegal? Can i sue them?
  • 17
    What the fuck did god do for you to be that naive ?
  • 0
    @hippolyte i dont fucking know. Seems like im not God's favorite person. what do you mean im naive
  • 4
    Red flag, if they take usually this long, they are not worth it.
  • 9
    @b2plane the fact that you didn't catch from the beginning that they were sketchy, and that you gave them full ownership of that repository, which was the mother of the red flags if it's not the whole amazon forest burning red already
  • 0
    @UnicornPoo this exactly
  • 3
    @b2plane you could if you still have the code ASE in your possession and set the license on your codebase right. You will also need to have the proof of ownership.

    Consult a lawyer! No legal advice here. But in my book this is theft.
  • 0
    Yikes! Sorry!
  • 8
    I would’ve ignored them the moment they asked for a free project
  • 1
    @hippolyte im inexperienced with jobs. They are a local company and one of the biggest and most familiar IT companies in my whole city. They have about 5 different buildings specifically built and reserved only for their company in just my city. How the fuck was i supposed to suspect they were about to scam me? Why would a multi million dollar company scam me?
  • 8
    Rule of a thumb for me, if the task takes more than two evenings over the weekend, I won't even look at it and the company's not worth it. They can go and find themselves another slave somewhere else..
  • 6
    Yeah.

    Signing over the repo was extremely naive from you, as was accepting to work on a 10 day project for free, although that might be defensible if the prospects were good.

    Legally, I don't think you can do much since there's probably no written agreement, but you might have a case if you recorded the meetings. Consult with a lawyer / country labor services in that case.

    As for your usual rant... This is the second time you mention failing at theoretical concepts. Perhaps take the hint and recognize it's something potential companies in your area value. It's not up to you too decide what holds value for them. It's up to you to recognize it and actually learn that.

    Also related to your last rant, asking for a salary 2.5x the market rate *will* draw 2.5x scrutiny on what you deliver, so you must be ready to defend it.

    Finally, this repo would have been a perfect example of a portfolio that could justify your demands, assuming it's up to the standard you claim.
  • 4
    Sounds like they scammed you into working for free.

    The company deserves to have its name publicized but I understand if you wouldn't want to risk the trouble or something. This "admission process" should be compensated at the very least.
  • 2
    @UnicornPoo @hippolyte @jassole @NeatNerdPrime @sideshowbob76 @ars1 @theKarlisK @myss @CoreFusionX @nururururu forgot to mention: to them the only piece of knowledge i was "missing" is knowing "why the car leaks oil" -- they want me to know how observables work under the hood. How jwt works under the hood. As if i have to learn and understand how libraries to their very core work and similar bullshit

    Basically they want me to be a professional formula F1 driver and a mechanic in the same time
  • 2
    @b2plane

    No. They want you to understand what you are doing, which is not unreasonable at all, again, when you demand 2.5x market rate.

    Because someone who understands what he's doing is able to solve shit whenever no one else has bothered to make a library for him, and someone who doesn't... Is a dead weight.
  • 1
    @CoreFusionX ok but why cant i learn that as i work on the job?
  • 5
    @b2plane

    Because, them hiring you is an investment in their part. Therefore, they are trying to make sure that investment is gonna pay off.

    It's you who is consistently refusing to do what you have to do to ensure getting those jobs...

    You seem to think that you have terrible luck and the world is against you.

    Bad luck can happen, but never this consistently. There's stuff you gotta improve at, but you refuse.

    You may either invest in yourself by improving those aspects, or keep bullshitting about how the world isn't fair to you.

    One leads to success, the other to more self-perceived unfairness.
  • 2
    @CoreFusionX you are also right. But its a balance between the market. If the market have abundance of devs, it's going to be harder and thereby comes the bullshittery, the never ending assignments, tests for nothing. I'd say low-quality bootcamps are mostly the direct cause of this.

    @b2plane you should keep applying and not take things personally, take an idea of the overall market across other companies than squarely blaming it. Its shit but that's life sometimes.
  • 8
    Take this as a game, don't get demotivated easily. Play those fuckers and win. You lose when you take it too personally and then just quit the entire industry.

    That's also life in general.
  • 3
    I do think it's weird that you had to turn over ownership of a GitHub repo. It's doesn't do shit. You still are the author, you never signed anything with them. Normal copyright law applies. Git is distributed and your copy contains all the original commits. You can just create it again with that.

    An assignment is fine but this one takes a bit much.
  • 2
    Never do a project for free. Fuck em. I bet their lead still googles shit like basic Js
  • 0
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